1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to removable furniture guards and, more particularly, is concerned with a flexible protective cover pad.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The household collisions of small children with coffee table corners and other protruding furniture and appliance edges must reverberate through time and space. To avoid the dangers of bodily harm which such accidents can bring to both children and adults, a variety of cushion and bumper devices have been developed over the years.
While meeting some needs in preventing injury to people and article damage as well, significant drawbacks in the prior art include insufficient shock-absorbing capability, difficulty in conforming to furniture surfaces, thus coming undone or falling off, and susceptibility to removal by small children. Many of these drawbacks are answered by recent design improvements. A representative example of one such device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,065,972 to Buckshaw et al. The Buckshaw corner bumper provides for significant shock absorption in collisions, as well as improved foldability of bumper flaps for adherence to furniture, and beveled bumper edges to prevent their being picked off by small children.
Despite these advantages, the Buckshaw bumper does have certain limitations, however. This bumper is particularly adaptable for use with furniture corners and edges because of the bumper's design configuration of cylindrical and flap portions. Appliances and other articles with less symmetrical surfaces would be less conducive to contact with the Buckshaw bumper.
Additionally, the rather detailed nature of the Buckshaw design features and the use of both resilient rubber and plastic in constructing the Buckshaw bumper entails the necessity of rather complicated construction involving significant expense in its manufacture.
Consequently, a need still exists for a flexible protective cover pad of simple and inexpensive construction which is readily adaptable for use with a wide range of surface types.